The Ride of Her Life (26 page)

Nick glanced at his beefy friend whose hot temper had settled more than one dispute in what Sean liked to call the “McGready way.” He clapped a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Why don’t you wait out here for me? If I need you, I’ll call.”

“Why don’t I come in with ya? I know yer thinkin’ to talk this out, but sometimes ya got to back up yer words.”

“Sean, he’s a lawyer. I don’t think he’s given to violence, and I certainly don’t want to hit the man.”

Sean tented an eyebrow.

“Okay, I’d love to punch him, but God wouldn’t want me to handle things that way.”

“Yer a better man than me, boyo.” Sean opened the door for him. “I’ll be out here if ya need me.”

Nick stepped into the foyer of the office. He looked down when his foot sank into a thick Oriental rug.

“May I help you?” a prim, middle-aged lady asked from behind a desk.

Nick glanced at the nameplate on her desk. “Miss Fallwell, I’m here to see Mr. Hart.”

“And you are?”

“Nick Perrin.”

She ran her long, slender finger down a ledger. “He doesn’t have an appointment scheduled for you, Mr. Perrin.”

“If you’ll tell him I’m here, I’m pretty sure he’ll see me anyway.”

Miss Fallwell folded her hands. “He’s not in.”

“When do you expect him to return?”

“I can make an appointment for the day after tomorrow.” The stenographer picked up a pencil. “Say, ten o’clock?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” The door opened, and Nick turned to see a familiar person walk in. “Mr. Snodgrass, what a surprise to see you here.”

The jumpy freight clerk pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat. “I . . . uh . . . have some legal matters to attend to.”

Miss Fallwell opened a drawer and withdrew an envelope. “Here you go, Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Hart said it’s all there and to thank you for a job well done.” The stenographer passed the envelope to the clerk, but Mr. Snodgrass’s hands shook so badly the envelope fluttered to the floor.

Nick snatched it from the floor. Miss Fallwell and Mr. Snodgrass both dove for it, but he stepped beyond their reach and opened the unsealed letter. After a peek inside, he released a long, low whistle. “What did you do for Mr. Hart that earned you such a lucrative profit?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Really?” Nick counted the bills inside. “I wonder if the railroad would feel the same way if I share what I know and your possible connection to missing freight.”

Sean filled the doorway. “Problems?”

“No. Mr. Snodgrass, the freight clerk, was about to help us find something we need quite badly.”

Mr. Snodgrass swallowed hard. “What do you want?”

Nick stepped close and pressed the envelope against Snodgrass’s chest. “I want to know where the lift chain is that I ordered for my roller coaster.”

“I really must protest to this treatment of Mr. Snodgrass.” Miss Fallwell rose to her feet. “If you don’t cease badgering him, I shall be forced to telephone the police.”

Sean moved next to Snodgrass and draped an arm around his shoulders. “We’re not badgering ya, laddie, are we?”

“No,” Snodgrass croaked. He tried to shrug off Sean’s arm, but Sean held firm. “Mr. Perrin, your chain is in Atlantic, Iowa.”

“And how can I get it here?” Nick crossed his arms over his chest.

“Please, Mr. Perrin, I shouldn’t have told you as much as I have. Certain people will be furious with me if they learn I said anything. Besides, all the trains heading this way have full loads.”

Anger bore a hole in Nick’s gut. “I guess I’ll have to pay the clerk in Atlantic, Iowa, a personal visit. You’d better hope he’s willing to make an exception.”

Sean let his arm drop from Snodgrass’s shoulder and turned to the stenographer. “And it’ll please me to bits if ya let Mr. Hart know that Mr. Snodgrass is no longer in his employ. Isn’t that right, laddie?”

“I think that might be in my best interest.” Mr. Snodgrass shoved his glasses up again.

Sean clapped him on the shoulder, nearly sending the frail man sprawling. “Now yer being a smart lad.”

“Come on, Sean,” Nick said. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”

Nick Perrin’s men deserved to eat Eugenia’s burnt sponge cake. They could eat her dry pork chops too.

It was Nick’s fault for abandoning Lilly. She’d gone in to get her cape only to find smoke wafting from the oven. By the time she’d gotten Eugenia, her charred cake, and Levi settled and returned to meet Nick, he’d taken off. She had to hurry to keep him from doing something foolish enough to land him in jail.

Quickening her steps, she made her way from the streetcar stop down the block to Ben’s former law office. Since Ben’s death, she’d not been inside. She pulled the heavy door open, and instantly the heady scent of dusty law books and leather pulled her heartstrings taut. She used to keep a baby carriage in the office’s back room. How many times had she met Ben there for lunch or run her hand over the mahogany of his desk?

“Lilly?” Nick’s eyes widened. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“And you shouldn’t have left me.” She turned to the stenographer. “Miss Fallwell, I want to see my father-in-law.”

“As I told these men, he’s not in.”

“Then give him a message from me.” She leaned on the desk. “Tell him to leave me and my son alone. I’m not afraid of him.” She glanced at Sean, then Nick. “Anymore.”

She spun and marched from the foyer, letting the door slam behind her. Outside she leaned against the cool brick building, her pulse racing and her body trembling. She took a deep breath. What a lie that had been!

Sean climbed in the rig and rode off, but Nick joined her. “You okay?”

She took another shuddery breath. “I’m fine.” She should still be furious with him, but the concern on his face removed all her resolve to remain angry. What was Nick doing to her?

“You were quite something in there.” He placed his hand on her arm. “But you’re shaking.”

“It’s not what I said to the clerk. It’s being here.”

“I figured that it would be hard. That’s one of the reasons I left.”

“And the other?”

“It’s my fight now.” Nick glanced at the gold letters on the window of the office. “He’s messing with my roller coaster and—”

“And?”

“And the woman I love.”

26

Lilly blinked.

“Miss Lilly, I’m really sorry about the cake.” Eugenia poured the blackened ring of sponge cake into the trash basket. “I’ll try to watch things more closely.”

Shaking her head, Lilly removed her hands from the sudsy dishwater and dried them on a towel. What was Eugenia prattling on about? Lilly needed to focus on the moment and not on what Nick had said.

He loved her.

The thought warmed her to her soul but sent a paralyzing bolt of fear through her at the same time. Nick was a man she could respect. He was honest and thoughtful, and although she believed his declaration, he wasn’t being practical about the two of them. He wouldn’t be around much longer. That was the nature of his job.

She placed the towel back on the hook. She’d already let him into their lives more than she ought. When he left, how was Levi going to take it?

And how would she handle it?

The all-too-familiar pain of loss knifed through her. She couldn’t do this again. But the lurch in her heart told her what she already knew.

It was too late.

She loved him too.

But he didn’t have to know that.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get the hang of this.” Eugenia slipped the empty cake plate into the dishpan.

Pushing her thoughts of Nick aside, Lilly turned to Eugenia. “You are improving. Learning to cook and bake takes time and practice, and I’m impressed with how far you’ve already come. As soon as we get these lunch dishes done, why don’t I show you how to make cinnamon rolls?”

Stepping back, Nick surveyed the coaster and grinned. They wouldn’t make opening day tomorrow, but the next day she should be running. His men had worked harder in the last two days than any men ought to have to, but they’d done it. Tomorrow, when they were testing the coaster, at least folks would get to see what it was like.

He snaked an arm around Lilly’s waist and kissed her cheek.

“Yuck!” Levi said, sticking out his tongue. “Mr. Nick, you’re going to get all gooshy kissing a girl.”

“I don’t think kissing your mama will make me gooshy. Will you make me gooshy, Lilly?”

She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know who is the grown-up when you two get together.”

“Mama, Mr. Nick is more growned up than me, and he’s more growned up than you too.”

“Taller does not make him mature.”

Nick grabbed Levi, whirled him in a wide circle, and then set him back on the ground. “Being mature isn’t nearly as much fun as playing. Lilly, what do you say? Shall we ride the miniature train? Or maybe the carousel? I saw they were both getting set up for tomorrow.”

“Please, Mama?”

“Nick, you said you have work to finish here.”

“I can come back later.”

“In the dark?”

“Sure.”

Lilly stood beneath the first incline of the mammoth roller coaster and stared at the lift chain. “Maybe we’ll go in a while, Levi.” She turned to Nick. “I know you got all this installed in one day, but tomorrow—”

“Is the park’s opening day. I know.” Nick wiped his hands on a rag and chuckled. “We were lucky that the freight clerk in Atlantic miraculously found a spot for it on one of the trains headed to Council Bluffs after Sean had a visit with him.”

Levi jumped up and down. “When can I ride it?”

“Never!” Lilly snapped.

Nick cocked his head in her direction. He fought the urge to argue with her. Levi was her son, but how overprotective could she be? The boy had been watching the coaster go up since the beginning. Naturally, he wanted to ride it.

He drew in a long breath. “Apparently your mama and I need to discuss that, buddy. Would you go get me my canteen out by the worktable?”

“Sure, Mr. Nick.”

Her back ramrod straight, Lilly propped her hands on her hips. “I do not want him on this contraption.”

“Well . . .” Nick drew out the word. “Why don’t you at least let me show you how this ‘contraption’ works? Let’s go inside the engine shed.” He held the door for her, then walked toward one of the cars set on a sawhorse stand. She remained by the door. “Come here. You can’t see anything from over there.”

Lilly sighed and moved closer. “I won’t change my mind.”

“This is the chain dog.” Nick indicated a horseshoe-shaped piece of steel beneath the car, then he stepped toward Lilly and wrapped his arms around her waist. “It engages the car to the lift chain. It bears the full weight of the car as the chain pulls it up the first lift hill.”

She licked her lips. “What if it slips? Mistakes can easily happen.”

“Not with me.” He held her gaze for a second, then took her hand. “Let’s go back out and I’ll show you.”

They joined Levi at the foot of the first incline. After a long drink from his canteen, Nick pointed to the lift hill. “See those green boards? We use those to keep the cars from rolling back. They allow a car to pass by going up, but if it were to slip and try going down, the boards would stop it.”

He wasn’t sure which was worse, the doubt in Lilly’s eyes about him or about the coaster, but he wished he could make both go away. Unfortunately, relationships didn’t have anti-rollback devices.

Pressing his hand to her back, her urged her closer to the lift chain. “Each of these sections is called a lift-chain barrel. That’s what the chain dogs under the cars attach to.”

“So once the motorized lift chain pulls the car to the top, what keeps the roller coaster going?”

He smiled. “Gravity, excitement, and magic. The trick is to design a track that keeps the ride going fast enough for a thrill, but not so fast you lose control.”

She stepped out of his reach. “You need to be careful. Going too fast can get someone hurt.”

Why did he feel the conversation had taken an unexpected plunge? How could he make her see she needed to give them a chance?

He glanced at the top of the roller coaster, the red flag on the cupola waving in the wind. “But, Lilly.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Some rides are worth the risk.”